Like Whatever
All things Gen-X. Take a stroll down memory lane, drink from a hose, and ride until the street lights come on. We discuss the past, present, and future of the forgotten generation. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
Like Whatever
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Two best friends. We're talking the past, from mistakes to arcades. We're having a blast. Teenage dreams, neon screens, it was all rad and no one knew me Like you know. It's like whatever. Together forever, we're never gonna sever Laughing and sharing our stories. Clever, we'll take you back. It's like whatever.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for. By and about Gen X. I'm Nicole and this is my BFF, heather. Hello, so how was your week?
Speaker 3:Oh, my week was not good. So normally we record on Tuesday, correct, but this week has been crazy. We live in Delaware where we get snow maybe two inches a year, like total all year.
Speaker 2:I think like 09 was the snowpocalypse like that was a lot and that was like a foot and a half of snow for like the whole year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we just got a foot of snow, yes, and it has been just brutal.
Speaker 2:Our little state's not prepared for this, not even a little bit.
Speaker 3:And um, so yeah, it's been. It's been a week. Um, as know, I work for the post office and I don't know if you know the motto of the post office, but I have been working all week in a foot of snow. Fun fact, mail trucks are horrible in the snow.
Speaker 2:Yes, they don't even look like they'd be good. They're not.
Speaker 3:And there is a we don't have. We have chains, but not enough for all the routes. Yeah because, again, it doesn't snow here very often so we wouldn't need chains. So it's been a harrowing three or four days. So that is. We are recording on Thursday and this goes up in, you know, just a few hours from now. But Heather's going to crush it, I'm going to crush it and on the opposite end of the postal job.
Speaker 2:I work for the state, so Monday I had off because, it snowed Tuesday. I had a two-hour delay because it snowed. Yeah, yeah, and I might get a delay tomorrow because now the winds are really high. Yes, and they are recovering. All delay tomorrow because now the winds are really high. Yes, and they are recovering all the roads. Yes, schools are already starting to delay for tomorrow.
Speaker 3:I can tell you, on my journey up here it was bad. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm hoping for another snow day tomorrow. You're probably going to get one.
Speaker 3:I am not A because of course we're closed today for the funeral of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 2:Correct Rest, of course we're closed today for the funeral of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 3:Rest in peace. Yes, if you would like to hear more about Jimmy Carter our take on Jimmy Carter you should listen to the last episode we did.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I am technically off today, but due to circumstances I was not able to get up here until five o'clock, so we're gonna record she's going to drive like an hour and a half, maybe two hours, because the weather's bad and the roads are bad, and then she's going to edit and have this up by midnight yes, we'll see so if you're tuning into this, please be all in while you're listening, because you better like share rate review thumbs it up, whatever. Heather put a lot and she's running on very little.
Speaker 3:I did sleep until nine this morning, so I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but.
Speaker 3:But I am tromping through a foot of snow. This week this has been brutal and you know you go on Facebook to all these little neighborhood groups and of course they're all bitching about oh, we didn't get mail this week.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Come on, guys. Well, and for the most part people are like chillax, like what is so important in your damn mail that you need it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not like the olden days anymore, and of course I we have been working. Shut your bitch ass mouth up, calm down.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Anyway, that's enough bitching from me about my week, and it's not going to get any better because it's supposed to snow again Saturday.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, I heard Good times. So Flavor Flav, our buddy Flavor Flav, trying to save Sesame Street Now he saved the Olympics, he did, yeah, yeah, the water polo team, right, yeah, yes, and now he's going to save Sesame Street. Good for him, I love it. You know what a 180 he's done? Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he seems to have it together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who knew we would be saying that Flava, flava had it together.
Speaker 2:I mean who knew he'd still be alive? That's true.
Speaker 3:You are not wrong. Oh man, I was going to tell you something else too, but I don't remember what it was. I was so ready to tell you when I got that damn car. I guess it wasn't that important, so anyway, yeah, that was a week. I don't think anything else is going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have much to share.
Speaker 3:She's just been snowed in hanging out.
Speaker 2:I made the obligatory crockpot soup on the snow day man soup. It was taco soup, it was good. Yeah, I was going to, it was good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to make baked potato soup today, but I didn't know what time I was going to be leaving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my daughter made baked potato soup on the snow day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I love baked potato soup, yeah, so that's that About that. So what is our topic today? Let's see, it's my week, so I know what the topic is.
Speaker 2:Let's fuck around and find out about the telephone.
Speaker 3:I got my information from androidauthoritycom, practicallynetworkcom and smithsoniancom. I didn't write that down in there. Did you see my note above that? I did, I did smithsoniancom. I didn't write that down in there. Did you see my note above that?
Speaker 2:you didn't, I did, I did. I see it now I wrote note to nicole because I bet she isn't actually reading this and actually right before we went on, I said you need to send me the script. She's like. I did like saturday. I was like, oh my bad, yeah, so yeah, yeah, I definitely did not read it. She did not, so she does not know.
Speaker 3:She's like just got it like five minutes ago. Does not know what we're talking about today. So I am going to just give a brief little history, mostly because I'm a nerd and I find it fascinating about the telephone. I mean I'm not going to be like technical because again I didn't understand the science behind telephones.
Speaker 3:But you know, oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. Okay, before we get into that, yeah, because that's how my brain works today. So on my way here, I was listening to my podcast and they were talking about a survivor story of the Titanic.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:Yes, see how important it is.
Speaker 2:And I forget that other people are not obsessed with the titanic, like I am.
Speaker 3:So she was explaining it and they were going back and forth and their information was wrong and they were like, oh, I did not. Oh, that happened. Well, maybe that was the movie, was you know? It did say that in the movie and I'm like oh, I feel like pain for you, yeah it was.
Speaker 3:I mean, they got it. Mostly they were surprised by a lot of things that I don't understand how you could be surprised by, because you know it's over 100 years now that that happened and I don't know. I just I forget that people are not obsessed with the Titanic. Me and James Cameron seem to be the only ones. All right, so Titanic, yep Look it up.
Speaker 2:It's a cool story. I'm so proud of you for remembering. Well, it literally just happened 45 minutes ago. That doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't. I did too many drugs. So, yeah, I'm gonna just do a little bit of the background on telephone and then we'll bring it back around to the telephone phone that we had you know, it's funny now, because this phone I don't.
Speaker 3:If it rings, I'm like, yeah, okay yeah, exactly, even if it's somebody I know, I sit there and I look for a second, like you couldn't have texted maybe I'll see if they leave a voicemail today I had because we were gonna um, we were gonna record virtually um just because of the snow issues, but um, again technical difficulty on heather's part. Um, I couldn't get it to work so I had to actually call her while we were online together on the little room because I couldn't hear her. So I had to call her and I can't believe she answered, because I'm pretty sure that's the first phone call we've had in about 10 years yeah, and it would have been a tragedy the last time that we spoke.
Speaker 2:I think that's the only time we call each other is when something really traumatic has happened, something horrible happens, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Also fun fact, we have never had a hug.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and we won't.
Speaker 3:No, we refuse, we do. It's a thing now.
Speaker 2:It is, oh it would be so weird.
Speaker 3:Plus, when we hug, one of us is dying. Yeah, oh, all right, let's move on. Probably be me. You better be me. So telephone Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed. Did you know that it was frequently disputed?
Speaker 2:I did know that. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:I did not.
Speaker 2:I watch a lot of documentaries. Oh, on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I watch a lot of documentaries. Oh, on that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Nerd in that way, yeah.
Speaker 3:So as with other influential inventions such as radio, television and the light bulb, the computer, several inventors pioneered experimental work on voice transmissions over a wire and improved on each other's ideas. New controversies of the issue still arise from time to time. Charles Bersow, antonio Meucci, joanne Philip Reyes and Alexander Graham Bell and Alicia Gray are among the ones credited with the invention of the telephone, but of course Alexander Graham Bell got the US patent in 1876. The earliest use of the word for communication system was the telephone created by Godfrey Huth in 1796. Huth proposed an alternative to the optical telegraph of Claude Schapp, in which the operators in the signaling towers would shout to each other by means of what is called speaking tubes, but we would call them megaphones these days, when speaking tubes I like that.
Speaker 3:A communication device for sailing vessels called telephone was invented by Captain John Taylor in 1844. The instrument used for four air horns to communicate with vessels in foggy weather. The term telephone was adopted into the vocabulary of many languages. It's derived from the Greek tele, far and phone voice, which means distant voice.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start calling it the distant voice.
Speaker 3:I'm going to say where is my distant voice? I've lost it again, goddamn distant voice, then you sound like a crazy person. The first telephones were directly connected to each other from one customer's office or residence to another customer's location. Being impractical beyond just a few customers, these systems were quickly replaced by manually operated, centrally located switchboards.
Speaker 2:That's so funny. I'm imagining like the red solo cup with the string from bedroom to bedroom.
Speaker 3:That's the OG. That's how they started. And then, like these central located was you know, in all the old movies, with the ladies that are like moving my grandma did that.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's my dad's mom. She was a switchboard operator. That's so cool, and I can still remember making phone calls to switchboard operators.
Speaker 3:I do not. I do remember like having to call the operator to get a phone number.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I remember calling the operator and they'd put in the number and connect you. I never did that, but I didn't have. I didn't really talk on the phone that much. So oh yeah, yeah, I'm not a not a fan, so I yeah. Before the advent of operator distance dialing and customer direct calling, a switchboard operation operator would work with their counterparts in distant central offices to complete long-distance calls. Switchboard operators are typically required to have very strong communication skills.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'd have to be very organized to do that job A hundred percent.
Speaker 3:First of all because, like, where would you stick the little thing yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's just one of those things that has to become automatic, I would think.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, before the advent of automatic exchange and operator's assistance, which required for anything other than calling telephones across a shared party line. My mom talks about shared party lines all the time.
Speaker 2:I remember party lines. I think I was a little too young maybe for those, but I do remember. I remember a lot too young maybe for those, but I do remember. I remember a lot. But I'm going to let you go so I don't interrupt you. Oh, no, no.
Speaker 3:If you read my note, you would see that I said please do.
Speaker 2:Well, I remember things like now I'm going to brain freeze oh, party lines are what we were talking about. And then shoot it's gone. All all right, go ahead and talk. It'll come back.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's because I don't have my wine this week oh, that's right, it's dry january I am not participating in dry january mostly because I participate in dry every other month.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so whatever, so shared probably. Carers spoke to an operator at a central office, who then connected a cord to the proper circuit in order to complete the call. Being in complete control of the call, the operator was in a position to listen to private conversations. Before the 60s, the telephone exchange, with telephone switchboards and operators, played a crucial role in connecting phone calls. Wow, switchboards and operators were an integral part of the telecommunications system until the introduction of electronic switching systems in the mid-20th century. Automatic or dial systems were developed in the 20s to reduce labor costs as usage increased and to ensure privacy to the customer. Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on the 1st of September 1878, when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company, because the attitude and behavior of the teenage boys previously employed as operators was unacceptable.
Speaker 2:It's funny how that sentence ended, because when you started that sentence I was thinking I can't believe they let a woman in 1878 be the first person to do that.
Speaker 3:Well, they weren't. They had kids doing it, young men, and they cussed Duh yeah, and it was. So they were like, yeah, that's not really working out.
Speaker 2:That's where the OG prank phone calls probably came from, yes, from them. Oh, I do remember what I was going to say. I remembered earlier, though. I remember when you used to have to call to get the weather. Yes, do you remember?
Speaker 2:that I do Yep, there was a. I want to say it was like a three-digit number or something that you called and they would tell you the weather forecast for the day. And you would also have to call to find out the time, the time Sometimes. Because you have to call to find out the time, the time Sometimes, because if you had electric only had electric clocks, and the power went out, you didn't know what time it was. You didn't have any way to know what time it was.
Speaker 3:You did not, unless you had a watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is true, but I've called for the time and a lot of times you just call.
Speaker 3:I know also that I used to call the time or the weather if the phone wasn't working. The phone wasn't work because I know, um, so where I live, the telephone lines would get salty right and so a lot of times, and the power lines too, um, they would go out because they were, they were loaded with salt and uh. So you didn't know if the phone was working or not, so you would have to call, but you didn't want to like try and make a call. So call the weather and telehealth. Do you remember telehealth? Um, I called telehealth all the time and it would give you a record, like you can what was it like telephone web md yeah you would call.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you could call and like. It would give you a list of like ailments and you can learn all about the ailment. I spent hours doing that Again, because I'm a nerd. Yep. Back to Emma. Okay, she was hired by Alexander Graham Bell and reportedly could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company. Wow, yeah, but there was probably like 10.
Speaker 2:Right, True, I mean, I used to be really good at phone numbers too. Me too.
Speaker 3:I still know my.
Speaker 2:we had the same phone number my whole growing up, so we had once we moved to the place I moved to in middle school I think it was middle school we stayed there. So, that was the same phone number. I remember that one, so that was the same phone number I remember that one.
Speaker 3:We had the same phone number from 1979 until my parents moved out of that exchange, so it was 539. It was 539 number and so I grew up at the beach and there was one phone number that said that you were at the beach.
Speaker 3:But the exchange you remember the first three. Three numbers would say where you were from. So whenever anybody would say their phone number, you knew exactly where they were from. Yes, by the first three digits. Yep, so we had a 539 and then, after start, more people started getting phones. Then they went with 537.
Speaker 2:So if you had a 539 number, yeah, I grew up in milford where it's 422 and I mean what, when I think I wasn't even living in milford anymore when this happened? But they went to 424 as well and I was upset, yeah, like that's not milford's number when I moved out on my own because I moved to rehoboth first and then a 227 if you're.
Speaker 3:If you care, that's an old school number too. And then I moved back into the 539 area and they tried to give me a 537 number and I was like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I want a 539. So I did end up getting a 539.
Speaker 3:And then it was 537 and then they went like 541. I know.
Speaker 2:Like Dover, was the only one that I remember always having two. It was 6-7-8 and 6-9-7. Or 6-7-4. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Georgetown was 8-5-6.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, yep, I remember that.
Speaker 3:Millsboro is 7-3-2. Tagsboro is 9-3-4. Sad that I remember all that don't ask me what five times anything is no or what I had for breakfast or what I was listening to 45 minutes ago, or where I am in this, in this, yeah, um so, but emma back to emma, yes, she can remember all the numbers.
Speaker 3:We're never gonna get past it no, I could remember all the numbers. More women began to replace men within the sector of the workforce for several reasons. This is the part that's gonna make you angry. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers and women's labor was cheaper in comparison to men. Yeah, specifically meant women were paid from one half to one quarter of a man's salary. In the united states, any switchboard operator employed by any independently owned public telephone company with no more than 750 stations were excluded from the equal pay act of 1963. Harriet daly became the first telephone switchboard operator at the United States Capitol in 1898.
Speaker 2:The funny thing is, we still have that huge gap there, that's odd, so crazy.
Speaker 3:I think we're going to make America great again. I think we're going to make America great again. Julia O'Connor, a former telephone operator, led the telephone operator strike of 1919.
Speaker 2:Oh dang, they hadn't even been in business that long. Nope the telephone operator.
Speaker 3:Strike of 1923 against New England Telephone Company on behalf of the IBEW Telephone Operators Department for Better Wages and Working Conditions. Wew Telephone Operators Department for better wages and working conditions In the 1919 strike. After five days, postmaster General Burleson agreed to negotiate an agreement between the union and the telephone company, resulting in an increase in pay for the operators and recognition of the right to bargain collectively. However, the 1923 strike was called off after less than a month without achieving any of its goals. I'm not going to say anything about the current Postmaster General. Yeah, you probably shouldn't. No, not a fan. In 1983, in Bryant Pond, maine. Susan, mostly I was just doing the female history of telephone.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. Well, there are a lot of females in the history of telephone. Well, there's a lot of women in the history of everything.
Speaker 3:Yes, and everybody knows about Alexander Graham Bell.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and I can't remember the story, but he's not even the one that really invented it.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. Susan Gleans became the last switchboard operator for hand crank phone. When that exchange was converted, manual central office switchboards continued in operation at rural points like Kerman California and. Wainard.
Speaker 2:South New Wales as late as 1991.
Speaker 3:Dang, I know, but these were central battery systems with no hand-cranked magnetos.
Speaker 2:I'm trying, I think I want to. I feel like I want to have a memory of hand-cranked phones, but I know I didn't.
Speaker 3:I think it's just remembering TV.
Speaker 2:And I was just going to say specifically Mesh, because they would always hand-crank the phone.
Speaker 3:Probably because they were weird phones crank the phone to. Probably because they were.
Speaker 2:They were weird phones too right, yeah, because they were like in those canvas bags. Yeah, and they would take them out, crank them up.
Speaker 3:Well, and the hand cranked ones were like the ones on the wall where right that had like they weren't together. You held that your piece up and then you talked into the wall, right while you're cranking it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very cumbersome it seems. So that would have perfect. I would have just never made phone calls.
Speaker 3:Never. I mean now. You carry it in your pocket. You don't make phone calls Exactly, it's either way. So these exchanges were soon connected together, eventually forming an automated, worldwide public switched telephone network. As phone systems became more sophisticated, less direct intervention by the telephone operator was necessary to complete calls. Sophisticated, less direct intervention by the telephone operator was necessary to complete calls. With the development of computerized telephone dialing systems, many telephone calls which previously required live operators could be placed directly by calling parties without additional human intervention. For greater mobility, various radio systems were developed in the mid-20th century for transmission between mobile stations on ships and in automobiles.
Speaker 2:So that would just be for well, no, live operators would be for just local calls, right, because remember calling collect.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, that's, I'll get to that but yeah, that's different. You could still make long distance calls without an operator if you had long distance.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like we had AT&T but to call collect.
Speaker 3:But to call collect, you needed to talk to the operator and like to get a phone number if you didn't have a phone book which, by the way, we still deliver phone books. I hate them. They're very small and they're very stupid but, we still do deliver them.
Speaker 3:That's crazy. Yeah, I can't, I'll stupid, but we still do deliver them. That's crazy. Yeah, they're I can't. I'll tell you what, though. When we get them, it's usually in the spring, and I can't imagine having to have delivered those big ones from our day where it was like 56 000 pages and yeah, and the new ones they don't even have, like it's just regular people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like an advertisement Pretty much yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're very small, that's crazy. So the concept of mounting both the transmitter and the receiver in the same handle appeared in 1878 in instruments designed for use by telephone operators in a New York City exchange. The earliest telephone instrument to see common use was introduced by Charles Williams Jr in 1882. Various versions of this telephone instrument remained in use through the United States as late as the 50s. The telephone dial originated with automatic telephone switching systems in 1896.
Speaker 3:Desk instruments were first constructed in 1897. Patterned after the wall-mounted telephone, they usually consisted of a separate receiver and transmitter. In 1927, however, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T oh snap, which, by the way, I did not know what AT&T stood for, no, me neither introduced the E1A handset which employed a combined transmitter-receiver arrangement. The ringer and much of the telephone electronics remained in a separate box on which the transmitter-received handle was cradled when not in use. The first telephone to incorporate all of the components of the station apparatus into one instrument was the so-called combined set of 37. Some 25 million of these instruments were produced until they were superseded by a new design in 1949. That one was totally new, incorporating significant improvements in audio quality, mechanical design and physical construction.
Speaker 3:And the push-button version of this set became available in 1963. Ooh, push-button, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Huh, I didn't know. It was around that early. I didn't either. They must have been really bougie, because we definitely had rotary phones for a long time.
Speaker 3:My grandparents had a. I don't remember. No, we did have a rotary too, but I remember my grandparents had the one. Ours was a wall-mounted rotary. My grandparents had the one with the cradle Right and it had a.
Speaker 2:I had, we had the wall one.
Speaker 3:Ours was green.
Speaker 2:Mine was yellow like that.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, ugly, mine was like ugly-ass green. Yeah, like a greeny-yellow Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Ugly-ass green ass green. Yeah, like a greeny yellow ugly ass, yep, but I think my friend's parents had the one in the cradle there's.
Speaker 3:My grandparents was black and it was I like to play because it would like yeah, the thing would click there yeah oh, the joys of the telephone in a simpler time, oh, my gosh, it's so crazy that like to think about it I mean the things that entertain us, and it's not even been that freaking long ago that we used a rotary phone.
Speaker 2:Well, it has been. I was watching something today and they said in 2002. I'm like, all right, wait 23 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, I know that's insane.
Speaker 3:It's unbelievable how fast time has moved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the older you get, the faster it goes.
Speaker 3:I know, you know it's so funny because when you're a kid, everybody's like oh, when you get older, and oh, I don't even remember how old I am anymore and I was like or when my birthday is, and I'm like, that's crazy. I'll never be like that, and now I have to actually do math to find out how old I am.
Speaker 2:I know kids when you know they're just pushing. They can't wait to be 16 and or 13 and 16 21 yeah, and I'm like slow down, so that minute you hit 21, shoot.
Speaker 3:It's like you step on a banana peel and then you're 30, it's all over. It really is this crazy. Yeah, I think it's because you just don't have anything to like. There's no milestone after 21. Really, yeah, it's all just numbers, don't? Yeah, there's no like you're not. Maybe when the numbers just get bigger like yeah like yay
Speaker 3:I'm 50 they just get sadder yeah, on the rotary dial the digits are arranged in a circular layout for those kids that don't know what a rotary is, with a finger hole in the finger wheel for each digit. For dialing a digit, the wheel is rotated against spring tension, with one finger position in the corresponding hold, pulling the wheel with the finger to a stop position, give given by a mechanical barrier, the finger stop One, released and cleverly named.
Speaker 1:Very clever.
Speaker 3:The first patent for a rotary dial was granted to Allman Brown Stoger on November 29, 1892, but the commonly known form with holes in the finger wheel was not introduced until about 1904. While used in telephone systems of the independent telephone companies, rotary dial service in the bell system in the United States was not common until the early 20s. From the 60s onward the rotary dial was gradually supplanted by push-button telephones, first introduced to the public at the 1962 World's Fair under the trade name Touchtone.
Speaker 2:Touchtone phones were. I remember that term.
Speaker 3:Yeah, touchtone technology primarily used a keypad in the form of a rectangular array of push buttons. Although no longer in common, use the rotary's dial. Legacy remains in the verbiage to dial, or to dial a telephone number, yep, because you don't actually dial it, nope. So my mom's number she remembered. I asked, so that tells you how you know brain injury, my ass. My mom's phone number was hu five, five, six, two, three, what?
Speaker 3:yeah, she remembers that from 70 fucking years ago but calls me, jess, 90 of the time, brain injury my ass hu how phone numbers look like this in the middle of the 20th century, because of telephone exchanges the hubs through which an area's calls will be routed phone subscribers were given a unique five digit number within their service area. These would be preceded by two digits, were identified by letters that don't detonate. It Didn't that denoted the telephone exchange you were connected to? Before the fifties, some cities use three letters and four numbers, while others had two letters and three numbers. The two letter five number format, or two L five N, was eventually standardized throughout the country.
Speaker 2:Well see, now I really did learn something I did not know.
Speaker 3:I always did know that, because she has always said whenever you ask my mom what her phone number was, she will always. And I was always like why is there letters in front of?
Speaker 2:that? Yeah, I don't think I realized the format and I didn't know anything about that.
Speaker 3:Around the same time, area codes were introduced, but they were used mostly by operators and not customers. In the late 50s and throughout the next two decades, us phone systems began switching to all-number calling, which didn't rely on archaic telephone exchanges and can exponentially add customers just by introducing new area codes. The change didn't happen without some resistance, however, of course right, people hate change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know people love the literary charm of their old telephone exchange names and groups like the anti-digit dialing league and the committee of 10 million to oppose all number calling, which is a very long name or form to protest the switch.
Speaker 2:That's like so funny to me because I could see myself joining one of these groups, because I would be very attached to my number. Like we said how we were mad that they changed our three digit.
Speaker 3:Well, I guess you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah so it sounds crazy, but I mean, I guess it was a big deal.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, probably because you know, if you remember your number as HU, whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that is hilarious though Committee of 10 million to oppose all number calling.
Speaker 3:That's a long ass name, it's intense. They meant business, they did mean business so now let's talk about the last 60 years. Oh, lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's only nine years longer than I've been alive, exactly.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's why I picked in the 1960s, owning a home phone was still a pricey affair. In 1968, a three-minute cross-country call would cost about $18 in today's dollars.
Speaker 2:Damn yeah.
Speaker 3:Americans would rent phones from AT&T, which owned about 80% of the market at the time.
Speaker 2:So like a cable box.
Speaker 3:Yeah, On a monthly basis. In 1963, the first commercial viable tone dialing phones went on the market. Introduced by AT&T as touch-tone dialing, they were slow to replace rotary phones. It wasn't until the 1990s that touch-tone phones began to take over the majority of the market share from rotary phones, I mean people dug their heels in on this. I mean you have to think that it's like the middle of the country, or I can't imagine that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either.
Speaker 3:It's so funny, though there's 10 million people who just didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2:I thought of something oh yeah, I do remember like you really couldn't call very far without being charged long distance.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I don't even think you could call within the same state.
Speaker 3:I want to say, like it might have just been county by county, well in Delaware anyway, yeah, it was. It was long distance to call Like.
Speaker 2:Wilmington.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Kent County for me.
Speaker 2:That's what I thought. Yeah, and it was really expensive.
Speaker 3:The problem that I had was because we lived three blocks from the Maryland-Delaware line. So I went to school in Maryland, my bus stop was in Maryland, everything I did in life was in Maryland because we were three blocks from Ocean City. So my bus stop was at the movies in Ocean City and tattletale on my parents. They smoked a lot of pot and my dad would forget us literally all the time. Yep, there was a phone booth at the movie theater on the street and we would have to go. We would sit there for like 10 minutes and be like he's not coming, because we weren't allowed to walk home, because we had to cross a pretty decently and there were a lot of serial killers back then I mean, I don't think they cared about that.
Speaker 3:They just didn't want us getting hit by a car. They definitely didn't care, because then they would lose help at the restaurant. So right, there was no getting hit by hospital bills. Oh, yeah yeah, you couldn't afford that they just have to let you die, and then you can't afford to just take out in the yard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just don't cross it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, doesn't dig a hole in the sand or something seagulls, it's time to put you down, so we would have to call collect um and so I I I put this in here as discussion um so, yeah, we would have to call collect.
Speaker 3:And so what we would do is you would you know, I'd like to make a collect call? And the lady would say you know from. And you would say dad, you forgot to pick us up. And then, when it would, it would call the house and they would say will you accept a collect call from dad, you forgot to pick us up that was so smart.
Speaker 3:And then he would say, oh shit, and then hang the phone up. But you could hear his end of the because you're sitting there waiting for him to accept the, so you could hear his side right so he would either say, oh shit, I'm on my way, and then everybody would hang up and then there was no collect call made right because he didn't accept the charges, because you had to actually say yes, I accepted you're such a little thug.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what we did, and stealing from the phone company every time we would have to make a click.
Speaker 3:It would be uh, will you accept the charges from dad? Seriously, where are you?
Speaker 2:oh shit, I'm on my way I've always had high anxiety, so I tried to always have change on me.
Speaker 3:But but just in case okay, but and and it was like 10 cents to make a phone call, right, right, but because we were in maryland to call delaware like 30 cents it was more right.
Speaker 3:And then I also remember that you could reverse the charges. Do you remember being able could reverse the charges? Do you remember being able to reverse the charges? So if you were making a long distance call from someone's house but they didn't want you to make, like okay, so because of the Maryland thing, we had this problem a lot, where it was always a long distance call. So if you're calling from your friend's house and they didn't want you to make their long distance phone calls, you would call and and say I would like to reverse the charges.
Speaker 2:Oh, so, and then they charge your, my mom and dads for my phone call.
Speaker 3:I know I had to talk to the operator a lot when I was crazy man, I know it was. It's so nuts to think about and that's what my little discussion note in there is like we had to call. I mean, we called radio stations.
Speaker 2:Oh my god that used to be my favorite and I loved I would win contests all the time. I did too. There was 93, 7 uh, what was it called in georgetown. I can't remember what the call letters were, I don't remember, but back in day it was like pop kind of stuff and rock and I would like you know eighth caller and I would be on that phone so fast and I would call and I'd win Redial, redial redial Yep, and then I would run and then I'd win and I'd like go to the station and they would have like a box of albums, yep, and they'd be like pick one.
Speaker 3:That was your prize or you'd win like a gift certificate to you know, get pizza, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, but even when my kids were little, I I made sure that they did that too, like riding to school. One day, um, my son, he, he loved the song who let the dogs out, uh-huh. So on the ride in he called the local radio station and asked them to play it. And they played him on the radio, requesting it. They played a song and he was so excited it really was again calling and requesting a song, especially if the dj put your, your conversation on uh-huh. Or even if they were just like sending Madonnas, like a virgin, out to Nicole who called in and requested You're like, oh, that's me.
Speaker 3:I don't remember when it was, but they would have an 80s lunch every day on one of the radio stations and this was when we actually did listen to the. You know, it's funny because listening to the radio at work, we would listen to the radio, of course, all day long and you didn't have a choice of what was playing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So I remember the DJ and everything was Mike Bradley. He did an 80s lunch and we would listen to it every single solitary day and we would request something every single solitary day. So he would be like going out to the girls at the Prague house. So he would be like going out to the girls at the Prague house Because Jessica always liked oh shit, the train, come on, ride the train.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the whole reason she had a wedding was so that she could do the train at her reception.
Speaker 3:So we would call in all the time and request songs on the 80-inch. It was just the best it was so much fun and like having to answer a phone blind, like the phone rang.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but when it rang you jumped yeah, You'd run to go answer that phone and you didn't know who was calling Nope, so we had a system of course because that's who we are, because my dad will not answer.
Speaker 3:He still will not answer his phone. So you would call the house and let it ring twice, and then you would hang up and you would call the house again.
Speaker 2:Yes, if your parents weren't home.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. Just to know your parents, to call my parents.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, he wouldn't answer it. It see, I was home alone a lot with my little sister, yeah, so we had to have a system like that. I wasn't allowed to answer the phone unless, like, the code came in. But yeah, I remember, I remember creeper phone calls.
Speaker 3:I'd get heavy breathers and stuff I mean that was really common back then yeah I mean, yeah, we would call, because no way, there was no way to track who was calling, who was calling, or no idea who it was calling, and it would ring and it could just literally be anybody Our neighbor across the street, my sister's best friend growing up, her dad, just the greatest human being you'd ever want to meet and he would answer the phone the county morgue and just any number of different things, and you would be, I think. I still remember their phone number too and then the prank calls I didn't.
Speaker 3:I don't like pranks, so I never did I don't like pranks, but I did do.
Speaker 2:Just, you're very stereotypical. Is your refrigerator? Yes, yes, we did the argument. Better go catch it. Yes, we would do. Calling up, is this domino's pizza? And it was just so funny, you know, we'd say that and hang up and we would just laugh and laugh one year um they printed our phone number for some reason in the phone book.
Speaker 3:Our phone number was for the shortstop in Ocean View, so for like six months we would get phone calls for the shortstop who sold food so people would be like calling in to get the.
Speaker 2:It was a mess did your dad take orders? Yes, oh god. He'd answered all kinds of questions and then at the end he'd be like calling in to get the. It was a mess. Did your dad take orders?
Speaker 3:yes, oh god he'd answered all kinds of questions and then at the end he'd be like you got the wrong number it's. I'm glad he told them and didn't let them go into the shortstop printed wrong in the phone book but yeah, and all times because it was a 24-hour shortstop oh my god. So the phone would ring in all hours of the day and night.
Speaker 2:So yeah it and nobody turned their ringers off back then.
Speaker 3:No no.
Speaker 2:You always. Your phone was always. I don't even know if you could turn the ringers off, you just took it off the hook.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right and it would ring busy, oh my God. And when you were trying to call a friend or something their parent would answer, or their parents would answer yeah yeah, oh, but we did learn manners.
Speaker 2:Yes, hello, Mrs So-and-so. This is Nicole. May I speak with? May I speak with?
Speaker 3:them Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:May I speak with them? I still, you know, and I work with teenagers now and you know it's just different. But you know they'll call me and they'll start talking and I'll let them talk. And when they stop, I'm like who is this? Even if I know who it is, or if they send me a text randomly out of nowhere and just random question, I'll text back. I'm sorry, who is this? Introduce yourself.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Somebody's got to teach them. You had to call for pizza. You actually had to pick the phone up and dial a number to get your pizza to come. And you had to know where you lived. Yeah, and the poor pizza people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no GPS.
Speaker 3:No, they had to know where you live too. There's no way I could have done that job. No, because I mean, well, in my area there was so few people that lived there in the winter that we my mom was in a bowling league, so Wednesdays we always got Domino's, and Domino's was in 124th Street for a little while, and in the wintertime, on Wednesdays, when you would call, they knew who it was, because I'd like to order a large pepperoni pizza, and they would be like, oh, and they would say the address and be like, yep, but then they moved further down into Ocean City so they wouldn't come into Delaware anymore.
Speaker 3:But in the wintertime the manager, I guess was the same manager from 124th Street to when they moved to it's down by the bridge, so like 60-something Street he would. So you would call and be like I'd like to order a pizza, and then you'd give the address and they'd be like, oh, I don't think I do. Hold on.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we do, okay, and that was when it was 30 minutes or less too.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, my mom used to be on a bowling league too, actually, when my parents were married. That's one of the very few memories that I have because I was like seven when they divorced, right, but I remember there being on bowling legs and I can. It's one of those like memories that incorporates a lot of senses.
Speaker 2:Like I remember what it smelled like, I remember the sounds, I remember laying on the like wooden bench and going to sleep like wrapped up in my parents coat Right and going because they're bowling till like midnight, yeah, and I'm like four and I remember there was a guy on the team named red and that just blew my mind that his name was red. Now, as an adult, I know it probably wasn't his real name.
Speaker 3:He probably had red hair or something like that, but I was, was just like wow, or his last name was Red, something I wish my name was Red, right. I want to be named Red we had one of the ads on the radio again because we had to listen to the radio. So because Ocean City was tourist all summer long, they played the same ads over and over. And it's funny because we were going to order pizza. I don't know, it was like a year ago or something and I was like, oh, we should get pizza two goes.
Speaker 3:And uh, joe was like well, I'll look up the number and I was like 524-2922 and he was. He just looked at me and he looked it up and he was like you're right. And I was like I can't believe they still have the same phone number. But I could sing that ad. Boy, I knew that ad. I can tell you that if you skydive for $195 and call 213-1319 in Ocean City, you can skydive for $195 and you can order pizza from Pizza Tucos. But those things just stuck in your head like I just find it funny that they still have the same phone number. That is funny and I'm sure that the kids working there would not find it funny that they still have the same phone number.
Speaker 2:That is funny and I'm sure that the kids working there would not find it as entertaining as I did.
Speaker 3:You should go in there and sing it to them, sometimes 5, 2, 4, 29, 22. Anyway, back to my story. Yes, in the US, while Mother's Day is the holiday with the highest number of phone calls the day, what the most collect calls is father's day, so fucked up, but verizon discontinued calls on its landlines in 2016. Yeah, really, yep no way yep. At&t similarly discontinued its collect call service for the united states, but 1-800-COLLECT remains operational Get out.
Speaker 2:That's so crazy. I haven't had a landline in so long. I haven't even thought about it.
Speaker 3:I don't think you have to pay for long distance. I don't think long distance is a thing anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would hope not, but why is there collect then?
Speaker 3:I don't know, maybe to call foreign Call from prison. Oh yeah, that is collect call. Oh no, it's not. It's not no, oh, I don't know why you need to know.
Speaker 2:I know that but I know it's not, I'm not even going to ask.
Speaker 3:Just comes right to your cell phone Call. Waiting was introduced to Northica in the early 70s. What?
Speaker 2:yep, and we didn't get it until I the 1995, I don't know at least I don't know.
Speaker 3:Uh, last call, return, automatic recall or star 69? Yeah, it's, the provider should subscribe.
Speaker 2:You had to subscribe to it yeah, yeah, I remember it was an additional thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it would cost so much every but that if you start, if you hit star 69, it would call back the number that had just called yeah, and I don't think that was the charge or was there. Yeah, I think it was like 10, 50 cents or something like that, a call. I think it would either tell you what the number was or it would just call it back automatically. I think at first it would call it back automatically and then later it would tell you what it was.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just know I always thought it was funny that it was 69. Because I have an immature brain like that? Because you're 10. I have the brain of a 12-year-old boy sometimes.
Speaker 3:The general public tends to refer to the service by telephone feature code Telephone number it has for their country, for example North America, it will start 69. On the UK it is 1471. It's not as fun. The New York Times described call return in 1992 as a new service. It can be paid per call or subscribed to monthly. Oh See, caller ID is a service that displays the phone numbers of an incoming call. It was first developed in the United States in 1968.
Speaker 2:Initially available on You're not going to say his last name, no.
Speaker 3:Okay, it's very long, we'll just call him Ted. Yeah, ted, ted. Initially available on internal private branch exchange telephone systems, it became widely available to residential customers in 1989. We did not get it until the 90s. The system works by relaying caller information from the central office switch to which the wires were connected, and it would come up in a little screen that was separate from your phone. And then remember when the phones came with caller ID on them. That was cool, but before that you have to have a little whole other box. Yep, the world's first telephone box called was opened on january 12, 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, berlin. That one I knew Berlin.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 3:That's Germany. To use it one had to buy a paper ticket called Telephone Billet, which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899, it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone. William Gray is credited with inventing the coin payphone in the United States in 1889, and George A Long was its developer. In the UK the creation of a national network of telephone boxes commenced in 1920. In the 40s, at military bases during World War II, outdoor booths started to appear. In the 40s, at military bases during World War II, outdoor booths started to appear, but in general they were most commonly placed indoors as they were mostly made of wood and didn't handle exposure to the elements well. And this all changed in 1954, when the Air Light Outdoor Telephone Booth was introduced.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember but it was made of glass and aluminum. I do, and that's also where Superman changed his clothes.
Speaker 3:It is where Superman changed his clothes, which is weird because it's completely made of glass.
Speaker 2:Maybe he was a little narcissistic.
Speaker 3:A little, I think he was. His name was Superman.
Speaker 2:He was a bit of an exhibitionist.
Speaker 3:I always say they were designed especially for the outdoors and originally intended to serve motorists traveling on the highway. Starting in the 70s, pay telephones were less commonly placed in booths in the United States. In many cities where they were once, common telephone booths have now been almost completely replaced by non-enclosed pay phones.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:In the United States, this replacement was caused, at least in part, by an attempt to make the pay telephones more accessible to disabled people. Well, I mean, you really couldn't get in those little booths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 3:And then they were just out in the open.
Speaker 2:But you had no protection, no, and no privacy.
Speaker 3:No. But, who are you talking?
Speaker 2:to that you need privacy.
Speaker 3:Oh, excuse me, like getting a telephone booth then the one of the movies was a telephone booth and they would have like a little phone booth connected to like a little yeah, I mean I remember, and there was the little corner metal yeah, and you put the phone book on there yeah, you could call yep, yep, and you had to put your little 10 cents in there, yep. Yep. Beginning in the 90s, many large cities began instituting restrictions on where payphones could be placed, under belief that they facilitated crime. I don't know why, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, because somebody did not have control over their city and they wanted to blame it on something.
Speaker 1:It's the goddamn phone booth.
Speaker 2:What's the new thing here?
Speaker 3:Maybe they thought that because Superman changed his clothes in telephone booths, that that's where crime happened.
Speaker 2:So now there was no more vigilante superhero.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Because he didn't have anywhere to change. Nope.
Speaker 3:Then he had to become a billionaire, like batman yep, and get his own shit. Yeah, in 1999, there were approximately 2 million phone booths in the united states. Only five percent of those remain in service by 2018. In 2008, at&t began withdrawing payphone support, citing profitability, and a few years later, verizon also left the payphone market. In 2015, a phone booth in Prairie Grove, arkansas, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2018, about a fifth of America's 100,000 remaining payphones were in New York, new York City.
Speaker 2:New York City.
Speaker 3:Only four phone booths remain in New York, new York City, new York City. Only four phone booths remain in New York City, all on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The rest have been converted into Wi-Fi hotspots.
Speaker 2:I'm happy there are still a few.
Speaker 3:Why on the Upper West Side?
Speaker 2:Because they're bougie. They're probably very fancy.
Speaker 3:They haven't had cell phones forever, though I would think.
Speaker 2:So they can take Instagram pictures. I think I've had cell phones forever, though. Yeah, so they can take Instagram pictures.
Speaker 3:That makes sense For the tickety-tock. Yes, incoming calls are no longer available and outgoing calls are now free, so if you find a phone booth you can make a call. I don't know if you're going to remember anybody's phone number.
Speaker 2:I don't know who I would call. I'd have to pull out my cell phone and look up the number.
Speaker 3:Pizza Two Goes is the only one I'd be able to call Now.
Speaker 2:I know a lot about germs and stuff. No thanks, I'd only be able to order a pizza.
Speaker 3:In February 2020, the city confirmed that, despite a plan to remove dozens of pay phones, the iconic booths would continue to be maintained. However, they were removed in 2022.
Speaker 2:Oh, damn it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are still phone booths in America, but they are not as common as they used to be. They're usually found in touristy or historic areas. Some people still use them because they like the privacy that they provide. In Philadelphia, an amateur phone collective called PhilTel is doing more than just preserving old pay phones they're installing new ones minus the pay part. The project aims to create a network of phones that make free calls anywhere in North America.
Speaker 2:We are totally going to Philly after they do this and looking for them and using a phone booth. I'll just bring some wipes, okay.
Speaker 3:I guess we're coming Philly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get a cheesesteak while we're there.
Speaker 3:Now let's talk about the thing that has undergone the biggest and perhaps most important change the cellular device. So we just took a little breaky-poo and I was complaining because I don't think it's right that snow boots do not have any kind of arch support. So you know, if you create snow boots, maybe make a.
Speaker 2:It really is a silly thing, because, I mean, a lot of people are either working and have them on or they're out shoveling their yards or like usually need some support.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on snow boots. I mean, my leg, my feet are killing me from having to wear this stupid ass thing. What?
Speaker 2:about you've been skiing right. Yeah, Do they have. Is it like that in ski boots?
Speaker 3:Ski boots are weird oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never.
Speaker 3:They don't bend. Oh, so they don't have like there's. No, they don't bend like a regular shoe. So you like kind of tromp tromp along. I mean much like I have been doing the last few days, tromp tromping along, but like my. So my boots have like a duck boot bottom, and then they're like fleece lined. The one good thing about mine, though, is that the insert comes out, so that if my feet get wet, I can just toss them in the dryer. Yeah, I don't have to dry them out for 10 days, but yeah, they have like no support at all, and it's just rude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what's going on with that.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the cellular. Let's go back to cellular devices. I'm not going to go into the technology or how they work, because I don't know how they work. Okay.
Speaker 2:It's crazy to me Me too. It's crazy that I carry a computer around in my pocket all day.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, like when I don't really understand how a telewound works, but like I can understand the concept of like a wire and like somehow my voice runs down the wire but yes, you know, you're just talking to this little box and it goes everywhere. Yeah, yeah, it's a little crazy, it is, I agree. The first true mobile phone was. The first true mobile phone call was made in 1973 by Martin Cooper.
Speaker 2:That's the year I was born.
Speaker 3:Oh, there you go. Cell phones are as old as you, I'm as old as the first mobile call there you go. I mean, that's saying something. He was a Motorola researcher and executive, but it took about a decade for cell phones to become commercially available.
Speaker 2:A decade yeah.
Speaker 3:The handheld device. So you were 10. The handheld device was shaped like a brick and weighed about 22.4 pounds. That little dot is very hard to see and weighed about 22.4 pounds. That little dot is very hard to see. Right there, 2.4.
Speaker 2:I thought it was 24. I was going to say that that's very heavy. Well, I do remember like I think the first ones were in like cars, so it wouldn't have been that crazy to me if it weighed 24 pounds, because it was installed in your car, it would weigh more than the Porsche that it was in.
Speaker 3:It was called the dynatac 8000x and it is considered as the original cell phone. The device only operated for a maximum of 30 minutes talk time not worth it and that was a huge 10 hours of charging. Totally not worth it. The very first call that was made by Cooper he called Dr Joel Engel, an engineer at their rival business, bell Labs.
Speaker 2:And said nanny, nanny, boo boo. I did it before you did Pretty much.
Speaker 3:But it was the very first mobile devices were not cheap. The cost of the Dynatac phone was $39.95. God damn $3,995, not $39.95, which is the equivalent to $10,000 in today's money.
Speaker 2:To be able to make a 30-minute phone call and then have to charge it for 10 minutes, 10 hours 10 hours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 3:It was clunky and heavy. It served primarily as a status symbol more than a functioning cell phone. It wasn't until 1989 that the Motorola Microtac, a flip phone small enough to put in a shirt pocket, signaling the start of phones getting smaller, I know.
Speaker 2:That seems 89?
Speaker 3:seems 89, because my ex had a large flip phone and he got it in 90.
Speaker 2:Well, 95, yeah, yeah, I mean 89 is only five years, from six years from that, and I then we could. Well, we couldn't afford it, but he wanted it, so we bought it.
Speaker 3:But my first one. You had to go through the Delaware surf fishermen to get it.
Speaker 1:I don't know why.
Speaker 3:It might've been cheaper that way or something. Oh yeah, and I still have the same phone number you do. Yeah, I know you do.
Speaker 2:Thank God, you've always had the same number.
Speaker 3:I always have the same, if I can't call anyone else. I know how to call you and the funny thing is is joe's always like we should just get rid of these numbers again. I'm like no way I've had this phone since I got that phone. If you think I'm gonna be able to remember another number, you're crazy exactly. Uh, in 1985 the mobile telephone c looked like a briefcase.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you've seen it in movies and stuff, yeah, in 1987, mobira city man 900, the very first nokia.
Speaker 3:The city man's movie, movie claim to fame, came in 1987. Lethal weapon, oh where. Multiple sequences, where the city man 900 is prominently used I don't remember seeing cell phones in lethal weapon you'll have to go back and watch it now I will.
Speaker 3:In finland the phone was known as gorba. This was due to the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev, general Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, called Moscow during a news conference from the hotel that has a lot of letters, in October of 89, using a CityMan 900 that had been given to him. In 1988, samsung releases their first phone. Its display was so small that text messages were impossible to see.
Speaker 2:But they sold it anyway.
Speaker 3:Only the dialed or incoming number was able to be seen. In 1989, the start of the flip phone era, motorola Microtac, which was my first phone. The Microtac pioneered a revolutionary flip design in which the mouthpiece flipped over the keypad. However, in later production, the mouthpiece and ringer were actually housed in the phone's base. The established. They established the bar and served as the prototype for contemporary flip phones. By 92 the antenna and phone bodies had both shrunk from the days of the brick phone. I remember the antenna too.
Speaker 2:You had to both shrunk from the days of the brick phone. I remember the antenna too. You had to pull it out.
Speaker 3:The next significant development was the Nokia 1011, the first 2G phone to be mass produced, which was introduced in 92. The first text message was also sent that year. I know 92, like that's the year I graduated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just seems so early, but I'm thinking of where we lived and that's probably. It was where we got married there, on Endover, that's when he got it. So, that was yeah. Yeah, that would have been it.
Speaker 3:Weird I know, the corporate director received the first text message from developer Neil Papworth at Vodafone's holiday office party. Neil was asked to develop a messaging system. The SMS message said Merry Christmas Home, mobile 1994. Smartphones arrived many more years earlier than most people realize. The IBM Simon was, which was introduced in 94, is regarded as the first smartphone in history because it was the first gadget to include apps and a touchscreen. Although the first smartphone failed to catch on, normal cell phone continued to become more and more popular while being smaller and more diverse in their design After the introduction of slider phones and other flip phones. Motorola innovated once again in 1996, the first phone with a keyboard.
Speaker 2:I had the slider phone. It was pink.
Speaker 3:I had the one that I had a slider phone.
Speaker 2:No, I did never have the slider one, yeah, and I ruined that phone at. Secrets because I was at a bachelorette party and everybody decided to go out to the rafts in that nasty water where oh yeah, yeah and well, I was drunk, so and I walked out and my phone was in my pocket.
Speaker 3:Do you know what story I just told my work bestie? What? Speaking of bachelorette parties, A bachelorette party in Dover. Oh God, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh God, that's a story for another day, okay.
Speaker 3:Let's just say it was not good times.
Speaker 2:It was. Oh, she had a blast I did. I had until I got home, yeah, and I got tattled on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Let's just say so. I'm going gonna tell it. I won't. But what happened was it was an all-male review. I did not want to go and she made me because it was her, it was her sister-in-law, yeah and uh. She made me and then she proceeded to get stinking ass drunk well, what else am I supposed to do? I didn't so we are at this all-male review and she thought it was hilarious.
Speaker 2:I could not stop laughing and heather came snatching me saying will you stop laughing at them? But it was so funny, Like who finds that sexy? Seriously Okay.
Speaker 3:And then here's the worst part of the whole thing.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember any of it Well before I think yeah, I do, but I would also stick dollar bills down Heather's shirt, that's what I'm talking about. So the strippers would have to stick their heads under her shirt to get them out.
Speaker 3:Awful, it was horrible.
Speaker 2:And then I puked in the limo and I was out the top of the limo going down the highway like I was some kind of rock star, yeah. And then one of the bitches that was there gets home before we do and tells my husband everything I had done. So, yeah, it's not a good night for nicole after that I do no, but it was really fun before it wasn't, instead of sticking dollar bills down her own shirt, she would just come.
Speaker 3:They would come out of nowhere and she'd run up and stick dollar bills down my well, they didn't come out of nowhere behind your head.
Speaker 2:I would wave the dollar bill so they would head to you, and when they got close I'd shove the dollar down their shirt. But I did end the night for us because you didn't, we got to another club. I puked in the parking lot and everybody decided to wrap it up that was that was true. You did it so I did get out of it I was just.
Speaker 3:It was so funny because I was just telling him about this story not that long ago oh my gosh, that was what in the 90s yeah, she got. They got married in 2000.
Speaker 2:2000, because my middle child was a newborn.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:I remember. Yeah, I was a mother then too.
Speaker 3:Of two Of two. Yeah, Recently just had the second one because it was October it was.
Speaker 2:They got married in October and she was born in August.
Speaker 3:In August.
Speaker 2:Good times, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:So back to cell phones.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't remember where I left off, though the first cell phone with a keyboard, the Nokia Communicator 9000, included a keyboard. It was Nokia's first smartphone. Is it Nokia or Nokia, or I don't know? We'll continue. I had a Nokia, a Nokia.
Speaker 2:I always said Nokia. I'm sure, however, any of us Americans are pronouncing this wrong so just do your best, continue. If I'm wrong, however, any of us Americans are pronouncing it is wrong, so just do your best Continue.
Speaker 3:If I'm wrong, sorry, yeah, I apologize. Nokia company, the Communicator 9000 provided a number of business-related functions in addition to a keyboard, including email, web browsing, faxing, word processing and spreadsheets. And it accomplished this long before BlackBerry came to represent the mobile professional. 1997, first phone without an antenna, wow, I know. In 98, the Nokia 5110. Oh, that's the first one without an antenna yes, because I had the 5111.
Speaker 3:That's the first one without an antenna. Yes, because I had the 5111. Ah, in 1999, it sponsored London Fashion Week, which was an immediate success and helped establish the trend for customizing your phone. That is why I had the Nokia, because it had the faceplates.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, the Nokia 5110 launched the early 2000s demand for mobile phones with interchangeable cases. People wanted the ability to change the color of their phone without the need to buy a completely new device. I had many. I could get them off of eBay. The little case, oh yeah. And you could change the keyboard out too. It would come different colors. Yeah, I was fancy, yeah.
Speaker 3:I didn't have kids, so I could have lots of disposable income uh 1998 also saw the addition of color to the screens, 3g network, personalized ringtones and the first downloadable material was in 1998. 1999 saw the first time you could use the internet with the Nokia 7110. Samsung released a phone that fused an MP3 player and a phone. The first phone with a GPS was the Benaphone. Also the first camera in the Kyocera. My sister had a Kyocera With front-facing camera and the ability to hold 20 photos. Oh damn.
Speaker 2:I would choose that in like a minute. Oh my God, yeah right, I was 99.
Speaker 3:So in 2001,. Nokia had high-end capabilities like infrared and a fully functioning calendar that were used for phones at the time, and it was the first Nokia phone to offer GPRS I don't know what that is and an FM radio. Ericsson had the first Bluetooth in 2001. Shoot 2002, the photo display and cameras with flash came from Sanyo. Nokia upped the camera game with the one megapixel camera. The first BlackBerry was in 2002. And the Sidekick was in 2002.
Speaker 2:I had a BlackBerry. I had a BlackBerry, I don't know why, I don't know, just because, just because I mean it was fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I didn't need it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mine was purple.
Speaker 2:I think mine was blue, but I'm glad that they went away.
Speaker 3:I think they still make Blackberries, do they? I know they still make Nokia. I don't think they have faceplates anymore. In 2005, the fully waterproof phone came from Casio. In 2007, the iPhone, and you can learn more about the iPhone. In episode five. I explained that I had that very first iPhone.
Speaker 2:It went on sale February 3rd 2007 at midnight because it was my husband's birthday and I didn't care that it was his birthday. I wanted the iPhone. So on his birthday I sat up until midnight so that I could order myself one. You had to go online and order it, like right at midnight, or something like that.
Speaker 3:Pretty exciting. If you want to hear that story and more about the iPhone, you can listen to Bill and Steve's Nerdy Adventure, episode 5. Yep, that's Episode 5. Yep, that's plugged there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's also. It was recently the anniversary of the start of Apple, was it? It might have been January 1st, it might have been New Year's Day Maybe, but I heard it on NPR, oh.
Speaker 3:I don't remember.
Speaker 2:They mentioned the.
Speaker 3:Steves, oh, oh.
Speaker 2:I don't remember.
Speaker 3:They mentioned the Steves. Oh, I wish I could. I'd have to. Yeah, I don't remember any of the episodes prior to this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me neither.
Speaker 3:And tomorrow I won't remember this one.
Speaker 2:You know, I was watching Jeopardy the other night and something came up and it was something that we had just done in the episode and all I could do was bust out laughing. My husband's looking at me like what? And all I could do was bust out laughing. My husband's looking at me like what? I'm like. We literally just talked about this and I cannot remember what the answer is. That's how I studied for tests in school, like get it all in and once the test was done, I'm done.
Speaker 3:No, reason to remember that. Anymore Gone, but I can still remember the phone number of Pizza two goes exactly. It's very frustrating. Uh, 2008 is when the android came along. Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm a liar yeah. Okay, I read that wrong.
Speaker 1:So in 2008,.
Speaker 3:Android, which contained Google integration.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:In 2009,. 4g, samsung's first Galaxy. That is when I went. I got the first Galaxy and I have not gone to anything else. I still have Galaxy, I have the. Actually I did have the last the Note. I had the note forever.
Speaker 2:I remember that.
Speaker 3:Then they stopped making the note. Now they don't make the note anymore, but the Galaxy took over all the cool stuff from the note that I wanted, like the little pen that I never used but I still insist on having it, for whatever reason you like accessories. I do and I don't need it.
Speaker 2:You really like accessories that you don't need. I do, I do.
Speaker 3:I do. Motorola had its first Google Map and Apple had FaceTime in 2009. I love FaceTime. I've never used FaceTime.
Speaker 2:My husband was a Samsung until he converted to Apple, I mean iPhone.
Speaker 3:It's been a little while, but it was just because he wanted to be able to FaceTime me Because I had an iPhone we use because Joe is an Apple guy and I am not, so we just use Facebook Messenger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if that was a thing or if it was really prominent. When I don't know.
Speaker 3:Well, samsung or Androids anyway have their own. I mean, you can video call another Android.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, have their own. I mean, you can video call another Android. Oh, okay, yeah, okay, it's just called video call. In 2010, the first Samsung without buttons, siri, was invented and Motorola had the first fingerprint sensor.
Speaker 2:That reminded me Anytime. So I have Siri on my phone. I literally never use it. I think it's so dumb. I'd rather punch in a few words to Google and have it come up for me than have to explain to her 75 times what I'm trying to say so I never, ever use it. But anytime I say I don't know if she'll do it now, but Sirianni, the head coach of the Eagles, it'll pop up Bloop Like no, siri, not you eagles.
Speaker 3:It'll pop up bloop like no siri, not you. Now joe will use. Use the siri for literally everything, except he doesn't use it right. It never works well. First of all, he just he says wonder if she'll do it. He just says hey, siri, and instead of just saying what you needed to say because that's what you're supposed to do like just say hey siri and then talk he's, he waits for her to answer.
Speaker 2:Like like she's a person just pops up and that's how you know it's ready, okay but uh fun fact okay that if you do wait for her to answer, she does go.
Speaker 3:Hmm hello, because she's waiting like what's up? Dumbass? That's what she should say. You rang Like hello.
Speaker 2:I mean when I very first got a phone with Siri, I said like I'd cuss her out and call her mean names and she would say things back like it was rude. Yeah, but besides that, I like Alexa.
Speaker 3:for that, I use Alexa a lot.
Speaker 2:I used to have an Alexa in the house and then I got so freaked out by, like people listening in and I don't know why. I don't have anything to like. I will literally like sit here on my computer with the camera open and be like somebody sees me. Good for you, you're having fun, watch me sit here and work. Good for you. But I don't know, it just creeped me out, I don't know why I just creeped me out.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I gave my mom. I bought my mom Alexa, thinking that she would be like never use. My mother talks to Alexa all the time, really.
Speaker 2:All the time.
Speaker 3:Her and Alexa have like whole conversation. I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't think she'd ever be able to use it. Yeah. But then I thought, well, maybe if she does, you know, just for For music, she listens to music all the time, right. Ever since I have been a child, there has always been a radio on in the house, always Right, or the TV in the background with, like on the music channels or whatever. She always has it. So I showed her. I said, look, you just say, alexa, put on whatever Bruce Springsteen, because that's who she's 98% of the time listening to. I'll call her and say something she's like oh, you know what, alexa, don't be that. And I'm like I don't think Alexa is supposed to be telling you things without you asking.
Speaker 2:Mom, definitely don't ever give her AI.
Speaker 3:So I just think it's funny because she just asks Alexa, like literally, she uses Alexa to Alexa's full potential. I'm so proud of her, I know, I'm so proud. I think I even got her a second one.
Speaker 2:And inspires me to get mine out.
Speaker 3:I think she has two now and I'm telling you she asks Alexa for recipes, she asks Alexa for stuff. All the time She'll say, oh, I just asked Alexa the other day that question. I'm like, okay, good stuff. All the time she'll say, oh, I just asked alexa the other day that question, okay, good for you. Mom, she's so cute. I just think it's funny that you know, I loved it, I did so proud of her and I do have the.
Speaker 3:I have the alexa I have for our house. I had it for her with hers and then I got my own and you can't do it to two places but you can drop in on alexa, so. So sometimes I would just drop into her alexa and be like hey mom and freak her out. I guess she didn't like alexa calling her mom. I don't know. I like alexa. I do it because you can play jeopardy with alexa. Yeah, and name that song. I like my Alexa.
Speaker 2:All right, maybe I'll get mine back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you should, it's fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's fun stuff, although I should probably buy a new one because mine's probably like 10 years old.
Speaker 3:Mine's pretty. Yeah, you're going to need to upgrade. Alexa's going to need to upgrade. I have it on my phone. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been making noise. 2014 Samsung's first heart rate monitor. 2015 was the first curved screen. Samsung has a. It's a beveled edge. Oh, and you can read your tech. You can set it up so you can read the like if it's sitting flat. Not these anymore, but the ones then, because I got that one too, I like to get.
Speaker 1:I don't know why I don't ever use tech, but I did get the first one.
Speaker 3:It would show you the text message on the side of it. Oh yeah, and google came out with its first phone, the pixel, in 2017. Um, apple has its face id, so I didn't go any further, because we all know what's happened since 2017 it's just like just you know yeah and but all that was just crazy, because it just happened so fast In 17 years, like I mean yeah, it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it took like a hundred years to get from a switchboard to a rotary. And then it just went nuts.
Speaker 3:Now we have AI and 2,700 cameras on this thing and you can't live without it and you have to take it everywhere. You don't have to call for pizza anymore. You know you just text everybody and you know Then video calling because I know I remember going to Disney and when they have the big globe thing, that's Jessica's favorite ride they would, you know, do the video calling.
Speaker 3:And you know, when you were a kid you were like what that's crazy and then today we're using it to to try and it's it's just crazy what you can do with it. Now it is, and then that's just been. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's crazy yeah, that was really cool. When you told me this was going to be your topic, I was kind of like, okay, I mean not that I didn't trust you would do a quality show or anything, but I was just like A weird topic All right. But yeah, that was really cool. I learned a lot, thanks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just think you know the phone is. I feel like the phone was such an integral part of our, for different reasons, than teenagers have phones today but it was such an integral part of our generation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember you would just lay on the kitchen floor and twirl the cord around your finger and just talk for hours.
Speaker 3:We had the really long cord, but then that one would get all tangled.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, and you'd have to untangle it and your parents would be screaming at you for tangling it up, and and then you can stay on the phone too long because somebody else might be trying to call.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah it was oh, do you remember, though you could break through.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you ever had to do that I feel like I remember that I can't remember what you would have to. You have to call the operator, probably, and break in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was the thing that we did do. I did do that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I mean you had one number. That was it, like there was one way and if you were calling your parent at work, there was one number for you to call Yep, and it's not like you could call somebody at the next desk and ask them to get your mom for you.
Speaker 3:No, well, and the thing of it was is like at home, my mom, so my aunt, lived two and a half hours near Philadelphia and she was my mom's best friend and back then they of course didn't have texting and stuff. So she would call and they would talk for hours and if you were trying to call and you kept getting the busy thing, you'd be like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:like I gotta come home, or yeah, and and you would have very long phone calls back then, because that's how you kept in touch with people there wasn't social media um. I mean, you wrote letters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you sent cards and you took the picture in it and you talked on the phone so yeah, if you were talking to a friend or sister, mother, whatever, you were on the phone for a very long time hours sometimes I remember I would have like 20 minutes and then I would have to hang up, yeah, and wait, and then I could get back on the phone, yeah, I remember we were not allowed to have phones in our room, and when I got back from my year at University of Delaware, I was like, well, I'm an adult now mom, Like you can't tell me how to live my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to get pink hair and pierce my nose, yeah, and I did.
Speaker 3:She didn't care, she did, she pretended she cared.
Speaker 2:Those were the two things you weren't allowed to do, and I did them both and she didn't care.
Speaker 3:I dyed her hair pink.
Speaker 2:So I almost got in trouble with your mom that time. She did not like that I would never get in trouble with your mom, but that was the closest I ever got.
Speaker 3:Then she started dyeing my hair because she said you two are making a mess in my bathroom.
Speaker 1:So my mom just started doing it for me.
Speaker 3:It's no way to rebel with your mom doing your hair. Yeah she, I forget what I was going to say Talking on the phone?
Speaker 2:Oh, phone in your room.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah. So we weren't allowed to have phones in our room, so I had said I would like a phone in my room and she was like fine, but you have to do it, so you would have to put the splitter in because we didn't have. She wasn't paying for.
Speaker 2:Another line because the phone company had to come to your house and run the wiring.
Speaker 3:She wasn't no more jacks in the house. There was one jack, she had one in her room and there was one downstairs and that was it. So I had to run a splitter and I had to run a wire all the way down the hallway into my room. So my sister is five years younger than me and threw a temper tantrum because why did I have a phone in my? Room and she and you know that they made me put a room one in her room too.
Speaker 2:No doubt that's really ignorant because it really is a complaint. Yeah, exactly exactly what you were worldly you had gone away I had gone to the university of delaware.
Speaker 3:I went all the way to the other end of the state.
Speaker 2:And lived by yourself. Yeah, by myself. We had regular phones. When we went to UD? Yeah, we did. Yep, I would call you and remember answering machines Try to make you do things. You would tell me the Beastie Boys were over and you didn't want to go out, that's because, I was drunk. The Beasties always wrecked your room when you were drunk.
Speaker 3:That was not the Beastie Boys that wrecked my room.
Speaker 2:That was our boys yes Dale and Travis Dale and Travis wrecked my room.
Speaker 3:Dale chipped his tooth.
Speaker 2:They were moshing. They were moshing in my dorm room.
Speaker 3:No moshing in the dorm room, dale, never a never a good idea.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. You'll chip a tooth yeah, good times, oh, such good times so that was the phone.
Speaker 3:Um yeah, if you like that, you can like share rate review, give us a thumbs up, whatever, anything any of the things we'll take it yeah, tell your friends, have them listen. Yeah, yeah, so join the Facebook page join the Facebook.
Speaker 2:We have Facebook Instagram threads Blue Sky, blue Sky we. That's a new one this week and that's taking off. We're up to like 60 followers.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah so yeah, yeah, you can find us on all of those things at LikeWhateverPod. You can send us an email and tell us all about your telephone adventures at LikeWhateverPod, at gmailcom or don't like whatever.
Speaker 1:Whatever, bye, bye.
